New Year's Eve 2009: Wine & Cheese

For New Year's Eve, I didn't have any plans so I ended up at my sister's for a small gathering. She and her fiancé D decided to forgo making a whole dinner and simply had a wine & cheese. Good idea! We were all fully stuffed with bread and cheese, and a few other small bites.


Paillot de chèvre and Saint-André.

L picked four cheeses: paillot de chèvre (a Québec goat cheese), Saint-André (a French cheese), Oka L'Artisan (another Québec cheese) and a Brie. The paillot de chèvre is named as such because paille (straw) was used to transport cheese throughout the province in the old days. Saint-André is a high-fat cheese from Normandy. Finally, Oka is a Canadian cheese named after the town of Oka in Québec; L'Artisan is a hard cheese with holes.



Oka and Brie.

My sister reserved a few slices of the goat cheese to serve on top of slices of bread, topped with walnut and a drizzle of honey. Le paillot de chèvre passed my friend MC's sign of good cheese, by displaying two compositions, a creamier version in the centre. My sister also made swedish meatballs and her friend M made a tasty spinach dip.


Goat cheese with walnuts and honey.

We did not limit ourselves to bread and cheese but also had a few accompaniments. My sister L made two dips: sun-dried tomato dip with crudités and also the pan-fried onion dip with chips. We also had kielbasa that I brought from Staropolskie with sweet gerkhins. She also made my favourite Swedish meatball recipe and her friend M brought a spinach dip.



Other accompaniments.

Finally, after we rang in 2010, we had chocolate cupcakes with champagne. Happy belated New Year to all my readers!


Chocolate cupcakes topped with strawberry.